Saturday, March 15, 2014

2014 Forecast: Tigers Going All the Way This Year

The Tigers have a new manager and a very different line-up in 2014, but expect more of the same.(Photo credit: Paul Sancya, AP)

With opening day about two weeks away, it's time for my predicted standings for 2014. The pre-season standings you see at places like Fan Graphs and Baseball Prospectus where almost all the teams are targeted for between 70 to 90 wins are projections rather than predictions. Everything is regressed to the mean which results in few players having great seasons and few teams winning a lot of games.

I like to use those kinds of projections as a baseline rather than a final forecast. Realistically, some teams will have more players having great seasons than others and those are the teams that will win 93+ games and probably make the playoffs. The goal here is to figure out which teams.

My predicted standings are below. There are no big surprises here. I actually arrived at the same ten playoff teams as FanGraphs which is coincidental as I used the Baseball Prospectus projections as my base. If I was going to pick a dark horse, it might be the Minnesota Twins who have a lot of interesting young talent. I don't think they are ready to move up though. My National League candidate would be the San Diego Padres.

Most importantly, I'm picking the Tigers to easily win the American League Central with 93 wins. That is the same number of wins as last year. Don't they have less talent this year though with the trades of Prince Fielder and Doug Fister? Yes, but their run differential last year suggests that they should have won 98 games. They won five less games than they should have due to losing a lot of close games which I think was mostly random. Thus, they should make up for reduced talent by having better situational performance.

Finally, since the playoffs are largely a crapshoot, there is no reason to not pick the Tigers to win the World Series. So, that is my forecast: Tigers win the World Series.

Predicted MLB Standings 2014

AL East

W

L

PCT

Tampa Bay*

93

69

.574

Boston#

86

76

.531

New York

81

81

.500

Toronto

79

83

.488

Baltimore

75

87

.463

AL Central

W

L

PCT

Detroit*

93

69

.574

Cleveland

81

81

.500

Kansas City

78

84

.481

Minnesota

71

91

.438

Chicago

70

92

.432

AL West

W

L

PCT

Los Angeles*

95

67

.586

Oakland#

87

75

.537

Texas

83

79

.512

Seattle

79

83

.488

Houston

62

100

.383

NL East

W

L

PCT

Washington*

96

66

.593

Atlanta#

89

73

.549

New York

74

88

.457

Philadelphia

73

89

.451

Miami

65

97

.401

NL Central

W

L

PCT

St. Louis*

93

69

.574

Pittsburgh#

86

76

.531

Cincinnati

84

78

.519

Milwaukee

74

88

.457

Chicago

68

94

.420

NL West

W

L

PCT

Los Angeles*

99

63

.611

San Francisco

84

78

.519

Arizona

82

80

.506

San Diego

78

84

.481

Colorado

72

90

.444

*Division winner#Wild card

Playoffs

Wild Card Games
Oakland over Boston
Pittsburgh over Atlanta

Divisional Series
Oakland over Los Angeles (AL)
Detroit over Tampa Bay
Los Angeles (NL) over Pittsburgh
St. Louis over Washington

Championship Series
Detroit over Oakland
St. Louis over Los Angeles (NL)